


Second Person Eats For Free

by Barkour



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gap Filler, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 20:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/702369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaime isn't doing so good with the whole you're-going-to-end-the-world thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Person Eats For Free

**Author's Note:**

> Set between "Cornered" and "True Colors." If it doesn't work with the time stamps, then ehhhhh, let's just fudge things a little and call it square.

The buffet on 15th and Lincoln was all you can eat, and on Thursday it offered a buy-one-get-one free deal for minors. Perfect—it was coming out of Jaime’s wallet, after all. He paid for his meal and a soda, and Bart grabbed a tray.

“See you in a second!”

Jaime hooked him by the shoulder and pulled Bart back against his chest. Bart protested—hey! what gives!—and went stiff a little, back straightening, his bony shoulder pressing into Jaime’s clavicle. Jaime leaned in. Pinned against Jaime, Bart half-turned; the line of his nose showed.

“Dude—no powers,” Jaime hissed to Bart’s ear.

Bart shrugged him off. He was flush against Jaime, and then he was two steps away and turning the tray over in his hands. His long fingers flashed. The tray spun faster, then stopped, pointed vertically. Bart tipped his head and smiled: a lean look.

“C’mon, hermano, what do you take me for? I’m not automated.”

“Secret identities are so retro,” Jaime muttered. He wished he hadn’t said it.

Bart missed it. “I’m going to check out the meat,” he said, pointing, “and then the pasta and I guess, wow, everything? Gotta run!” He made a pistol with his fingers, popped it, and then he was off—at a pleasant walk.

The cashier cleared her throat. She shook a second glass at Jaime.

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. Right. Sorry.”

He collected Bart’s glass and got out of the way. The buffet was busy, but a small booth had opened up by the long bank of windows overlooking the street. Jaime set their stuff down at that booth. The table was still damp, and whoever had cleaned it so hastily had missed a straw wrapper, hidden behind the napkin dispenser. Jaime looked out the windows and tried to ignore the pinching thing that was yawning inside him. 

The sun was setting in Texas. Long shadows ate up the street corners. A light turned on at the corner of 15th. Street lights turned on all down Lincoln, putting out that yellow light that would mean more when the sun had gone and night come. A crowd of teenagers, rowdy, laughing, crossed 15th and headed toward 16th. Two of the girls in the group were holding hands and they turned to each other, bending to touch. Their shadows, faint, blended.

The TV set hoisted into the corner of the buffet was stuck on GBS. The volume was down, and G Gordon Godfrey’s ranting was drowned in the Thursday night cacophony: families together, children laughing or screaming, the small arcade set-up in the back leaking the sound of laser fire and air hockey. And Jaime, looking out the window and into the coming twilight, was thinking of the desert outside El Paso.

Something clattered loudly nearby. The table rattled, and Jaime started. Bart had dropped his laden tray down. Now, a long stalk of celery sticking out of from between his front teeth, he eyed Jaime.

“Are you okay?” Bart asked. He rolled the celery stalk to the corner of his mouth to do so.

Jaime thought—and it passed quickly—is he afraid? Even to himself he could not think, of me. The scarab noted that the Impulse showed no change in posture indicating either offense or defense.

“Yeah,” said Jaime. “Yeah, I’m crash.” His throat hurt. He looked down to the glasses. “Here—you forgot your cup. Red’s for soda.”

Bart took it from Jaime. Their hands brushed—Bart’s fingertips skated over the backs of Jaime’s knuckles—his thumbnail just glanced Jaime’s first finger—and then Jaime dropped his hand and stepped away. He stuffed his hands down into his hoodie pockets, where he could fist them and not be seen for it.

In the reflection the window afforded, Jaime watched Bart finger the glass.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“I’ll get something in a little bit,” Jaime said, watching, in the window, the constant movement of Bart’s fingers, how his hands flickered as he set the glass down and then picked it up again. He had a memory—a memory—of Bart’s hands on Jaime’s bare chest, holding him up when he would have fallen.

Bart set the glass down again. His lips worked. On the lip of the glass, his fingers tapped.

“Hey,” he said, “are you sure you—”

Jaime turned from the window. “Are you really gonna eat all that?”

Bart looked down at his tray. Four plates, stacked high with something of everything, threatened to spill over.

“Well,” Bart said, “it’s all you can eat, and you’re paying, so I should really try to make sure you get your money’s worth.” He touched his stomach, t-shirt wrinkling. “And I’m kind of hungry, too.”

“Yeah,” Jaime said, “I can kind of tell.”

Bart touched the plate nearest him; then he pushed it off the tray and toward Jaime.

“Here,” Bart said. “You should eat, too. You have to keep up your strength, or, uh, whatever.” He hefted his arms up and flexed, an act that would have impressed had he more muscle to his arms. That was untrue: Bart’s arm, slung over Jaime’s back in the belly of the Reach’s ship, had been strong, and Jaime had leaned into him and found Bart steady, too.

Jaime curled his hands tighter in his pockets, tight so his wrists ached. His knuckles still burned where Bart had touched them.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” said Jaime.

Bart’s fingers unwound. His pose wavered and then, slowly, he dropped his arms. He didn’t look away from Jaime. He didn’t blink. But Jaime, he could look away. The sun had gone down behind the low buildings. The last few, red fingers of day receded. Night crept over the city.

“I’m not babysitting you,” said Bart. “I’m just hanging out with my friend. My friend who just bought me dinner, which was a way crash thing to do. I mean, all you can eat?” He turned, gesturing to the whole of the restaurant. “I couldn’t even dream of something like this.”

The scarab said, _This is an unnecessary effort. The Impulse’s friendship is irrelevant._

Jaime squeezed his eyes shut. His fingernails dug into his palms. He hoped they bled. He wondered if they would.

A hand landed lightly on his arm. Bart’s fingers ghosted to his elbow.

“Hey,” said Bart. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Jaime said. “I’m not. I just—” He pulled a hand free and rubbed at his brow. “I just need to sit down for a moment, bien?”

_This is a waste of time,_ said the scarab. Jaime, sitting, covered his face. He dug his fingers into his hairline. I want you out, he thought. I want you out, I want you out, get out of me, get out. 

“Yeah,” Bart said, “sure.”

Jaime’s palms were known to him. These were his hands. The folds in them, the veins that showed through, the pale scar that creased the underside of the third finger of his right hand: those were his.

Bart said, “Is it the whole future Reach apocalypse thing? Because don’t worry about it, we’re going to—”

“How am I _not_ supposed to worry about it?” 

His voice came muffled between his hands, sliding down his face. He glared out at Bart between his fingers.

“You tell me I’m supposed to—” He dropped his voice. “That I’m going to end the world.”

“Not the world,” said Bart, trying for lightheartedness, “just—you know, civilization.”

“And that’s not so bad?” Jaime snapped.

Bart’s smile dropped. He stuck a fork into mashed potatoes—heaped on top of half a steak and a huge, gooey mess of macaroni and cheese—and leveraged it up only to turn the fork over and smash the potatoes down again.

“Well,” said Bart. He rested his chin in his hand and looked back at the buffet. He turned the fork over and over, whipping up the potatoes. “The nuclear winter’s the really rough part. Not a lot of things grow without any sunlight.” 

Jaime burst out: “And you just say things like that, like it’s not—like it’s just—like it doesn’t mean anything. Like it’s nothing.”

Bart’s hand slowed, and then he stopped. His face creased. His mouth had tightened. His shoulders drew forward.

“It’s not nothing,” he said.

Jaime glanced down, away. Light reflected in his empty soda glass, spilling a thin red shadow across the table. A child ran down the aisle and another child ran, shouting, after the first. Jaime ran his fingers through his hair. He breathed out, feeling his chest go down with it.

“I know it’s not,” Jaime said. “I’m sorry.”

_You owe the Impulse nothing,_ said the scarab.

Jaime lowered his hands. He looked across the table at Bart. Behind Bart’s head, GBS was playing a loop of the Reach ambassador’s meet and greet with Secretary General Tseng. Jaime forced his gaze down, back to Bart: Bart who looked back at him with tired eyes and a smile.

“I owe you a lot,” Jaime said.

Bart shrugged. Another smile flickered across his face. 

“Call it even. You buy me food, I give you terrifying prophecies.”

“It’s discount night,” said Jaime. “I didn’t spend that much.”

“Bought me Chicken Whizees, ice cream, burritos, pizza—” Bart ticked each instance off on his fingers; they blurred.

Jaime rose up from his seat to lean against the table, reached over Bart’s mound of food, and slapped his hand down on top of Bart’s hand. Bart looked up again. Bent as he was over the table, Jaime’s face was near to Bart’s, near enough that Bart’s little exhale—cut off as quickly as it came—ran warm over Jaime’s mouth. The hand beneath Jaime’s palm shivered. Bart’s eyes were green, his cheeks thin, the shape of his mouth a long line. 

A soccer team came stomping in through the front doors, and in the rush of added noise, Jaime tightened his hand around Bart’s and said, “I’m not gonna let it happen.

“Whatever it takes,” he said. “I’m not—I’m gonna get this thing out of me.” Jaime tightened his hand around Bart’s. He squeezed Bart’s hand, his wrist. Felt Bart’s pulse, running. “I don’t care if I have to cut it out. I’m not letting the world end because of me. Because of anyone.”

Bart’s fingers curled. He turned his hand over, and then, like that, they were holding hands, Jaime holding Bart and Bart holding Jaime. The lines of Bart’s hand were unknown, the scars and calluses strange, but the weight of Bart’s hand in Jaime’s hand was sweet all the same. 

The scarab said, _I cannot be removed from a living host._

But Bart said, “Yeah. I know you won’t. You’re a hero.” Bart smiled then, a warm smile that made his lean face soft. 

“I should get something to eat, I guess,” Jaime said, glancing down to his forgotten tray, his lonesome glass.

“That’s okay,” said Bart. He held Jaime’s hand and didn’t let go. “I got plenty. You can have some of mine.” That smile, that soft, warm smile, stuck around. 

So Jaime, holding Bart’s warm wrist, his pulse between Jaime's fingers, smiled back.


End file.
